STONES AND GRAFFITI

1973

 

Following his 1973 stone painting experience in Ethiopia, Fiume felt the need to go on painting on a rocky material similar to the one that had so much enthused him in Africa. So, he had a number of stones from the Lambro river cut in halves, and painted some of his Islands of Statues upon them. Later, as the stones were still very heavy to move or hang though having been cut in halves, Fiume had a number of panels made on whose surfaces the real stones were replaced by a much lighter concrete mixture, easier to move, but with a surface as rough as stone. On them he carried out a cycle of works called graffiti as they were painted on surfaces similar to those on which the anonymous artists of the Altamira Caves in Spain and of Lascaux in France had painted their graffiti thousands of years earlier, and by which Fiume had been extremely fascinated.

Stones • 1973

Graffiti • 1973